Frederick Ashton was never in the business of grooming a successor: mentoring choreographers has not been a strong tradition at the Royal Ballet. But the ballets Ashton created have become a priceless teaching legacy, both for those who watch and those who dance in them.
In fact, inspiration is not too strong a word for three of the works that appear in this programme, although - not surprisingly - it eludes those that try hardest to echo Ashton's style. Anthony Dowson's Momento is a homage to the pure, scintillating dance at which the master excelled, but although it sparkles intermittently, it lacks those moments of deviant beauty that made Ashton so much more than a textbook choreographer. Peter Quanz's Fantasy, which tries to emulate Ashton's romantic storytelling, does not even get off the ground.
What makes the other works fly is that their choreographers have looked just as lovingly at Ashton but remained true to their own aesthetics. Kim Brandstrup's Two Footnotes looks nothing like Ashton, yet its opening duet, danced by Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg, captures Ashton's ability to distil pages of emotion into a single image - a searing glance, a yielding of the back - and to root that rush of emotion in the physical swoop of the music. By contrast, the following solo, danced by Zenaida Yanowsky, is all about those moments of silence, even awkwardness, through which Ashton allowed pain and despair to intrude on the stage.
In Engram, Wayne McGregor encrypts references to Ashton's whole repertory of iconic steps. Flashing through this extreme, vertiginous duet are lightning quotations of arm positions, arabesques, motions of the head - Ashton recalled on speed.
Will Tuckett's Mr Bear-Squash-You-All-Flat was created in homage to its composer, Constant Lambert. But its daft, deliciously anthropomorphised animal cast owes everything to Ashton's genius for rapid characterisation. And it is the only one of the five to remind us of his wicked sense of humour.
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